Unlike the newer writing systems, such as Greek, Cyrillic or Latin, the ancient language system of the Chinese does not have an alphabet and uses a writing system based on picture characters to depict the written word. Each character is a unique picture that represents a unique idea, like a fingerprint. Therefore, the Chinese must learn to read by the rote memorization of several thousand characters: one character at a time. The Chinese, themselves, rarely use their non-alphabetized, time-consuming dictionaries. They depend, rather, on their own memories (developed through all their childhood years of standing upright with hands clasped behind their backs) tediously learning character after character by mind power alone.
In addition to the lack of an alphabet, the Chinese language also lacks a significant correlation between characters and their meaning. Yet both of these problems represent just the beginnings of the difficulties in grasping an understanding of written Chinese. Even as the Chinese language is made up literally of words of just one syllable, the entire body of the Chinese language is comprised of only a limited number of syllables. For example, the single syllable ji is the unique sound of seventy-two basic and unrelated words, each represented by its own unique character picture. Each one of these ji one syllable words includes such disparate ideas as the verbs to mock, to calculate, and to strike, as well as an assortment of other words such as almost, how many, and while.
A reader of Chinese must be able to understand at least 3,500 characters in order to be considered literate. This is the number required to read a newspaper. However, even in the face of such tedious memorization, the striking thing is that, in all the centuries prior to the advent of the computer, the Chinese never devised a written alphabet or applied spelling to their picture characters, and continued to learn their characters one picture at a time.
The advent of the personal computer changed all of that forever in the following ways:                (a) First, the Chinese devised the alphabetic writing system called Pinyin. (Pinyin means to spell phonetically. It is derived from pīn meaning to arrange, and yīin meaning sound. Pinyin is a system for applying a Latinized alphabetic spelling to Chinese ideograms in which tones are indicated by diacritics and unaspirated consonants are transcribed as voiced. For example, the two words that represent the Chinese characters meaning Chinese written language are written in Pinyin as zhōng wén. The macron or straight line over the ‘ō’ in the first Pinyin word indicates that zhōng is pronounced in a level, singing tone. The acute accent or upward slanting diacritic mark over the ‘é’ in the second Pinyin word indicates that wén is pronounced in an ascending, singing tone.) Therefore, anyone who wished to use a computer first needed to learn the Pinyin spelling that has been assigned to each Chinese character.        (b) As with Asian languages in general, the large Chinese character set makes it impractical to design keyboards with enough keys to generate each character. Hence, after the advent of computers, Chinese typewriters (any one of which filled the space of an entire room) disappeared.        (c) There was a serious effort to devise an input system and font that could computerize character pictures. One of the more successful ventures in the early days was a product called “Tien Ma” (International Geosystems Corporation, 1987). However, it had many drawbacks to its usefulness. Tian Ma's greatest problem was that both the Pinyin spelling and character configurations needed to be known to the user before the system could be used. Another drawback was that the system was cumbersome and required that an additional piece of hardware be added to a personal computer. It also required about 15 minutes to print in a legible, large font, a single page containing about nineteen Chinese characters intermixed with English text.        (d) In current times there have been developed more successful methods of entering Chinese characters into a computer using Pinyin. However, even modern Pinyin systems are tedious to use and it must be stressed that to perform this action the user must already know exactly how to read and write the Chinese character before input into the computer can be accomplished. In other words, the Pinyin and character configuration must already be known to the user. Therefore, the Pinyin system is useless to anyone who does not already read Chinese characters. If the user knows both the Pinyin and the exact drawing of the Chinese character, he/she can use one of several methods of the Pinyin system to input a character into a computer. An example of piào liàng, meaning pretty, describes the complex process. In one of the more popular of these methods, the user types the first of the two Pinyin word examples, that of piào, into an edit field that yields a string of 61 character pictures (all with the meaning of piào) from which the fourth character is to be selected. The procedure is next repeated for the Pinyin word liàng with a yield of a string of 52 characters from which the tenth is to be selected.        (e) In mainland China a system called W{hacek over (u)} b{hacek over (i)} has also been devised for the input of Chinese characters into a computer. W{hacek over (u)} b{hacek over (i)} is a primary, shape-based input method used to create and transcribe text. W{hacek over (u)} b{hacek over (i)} is based on the structure, or shape, of characters rather than on their pronunciation. The main concept behind W{hacek over (u)} b{hacek over (i)} is that characters can be built by combining roots. The system can be used only by highly-trained Chinese writing specialists who compose characters using a classical five-writing-brush-stroke method of: lateral, vertical, left sweep, dot/right sweep, and bend.        
Prior discussion has outlined the difficulties of putting characters into a computer, but the job of translation also presents problems. One large problem is that there is no system to translate a character directly from the character picture itself. Therefore, without prior knowledge of the Pinyin word that had been assigned to a given Chinese character, only non-alphabetized Chinese dictionaries are available to translators. The use of these dictionaries entails tedious hours (and considerable eye strain) looking through pages of fine-print columns. The translator needs to tease out the Pinyin from one or more of the 214 radicals that might or might not be found in a given character. (Radicals are distinctive stroke patterns that, when found in a given character, might or might not give a due to either the sound or the subject of the character.) It is not unusual to work for several hours of vigorous effort to produce the Pinyin of just one single word. Only after the Pinyin has finally been ascertained can a user revert to a computerized or hard-copy Chinese/other language dictionary to locate and translate the character.
In a continuing, unending search for simplification, the Chinese have printed any number of specialized picture dictionaries in a broad range of subjects such as engineering, military, commerce, and marine transport, among others. A user must search through many categories of pictures, narrow the search to the desired choice, and be rewarded by a notation of the Chinese character's Pinyin and English. One such publication is the “Longman, Chinese-English Visual Dictionary of Chinese Culture” (Longman Asia limited, Hong Kong, 1997). It has 602 pages of diagrams and pictures, each with numbered references in small-print Pinyin and English to names of structures, activities, and articles. There are two indexes. The first is written in Chinese characters with occasional Pinyin guides to beginning letters of the characters. The second is written in characters by stroke order. There is no index in English.
Circa 2005, Motorola Corporation developed for the Chinese market an input/handwriting recognition function device used as an adjunct to a Motorola handset mobile phone sold under the trademark MING. The adjunct device is used as an aid for literate Chinese to reproduce a more accurate Chinese written character. Pinyin is required as input. It is of limited value and the MING mobile phone and its inclusive hand-writing recognition function is not warranted by Motorola in the United States.
The Chinese, themselves, have devised a variety of hand-held electronic devices to verify the accuracy of a Chinese character and to translate that character into other languages. However, all such devices are useless to those who do not already know the Pinyin associated with a given picture character.
The Chinese have also devised a reverse dictionary. This is used when a phrase of two characters is to be translated. If the Pinyin of the first character is unknown to the user, but the second character seems familiar, there is an entire dictionary to which the translator has recourse. One such tome is the 1,343 page work, “A Reverse Chinese-English Dictionary” (The Commercial Press, Beijing, 1985). The last part of the book is devoted to yet another appendix called: “A List of Active Reverse Head Characters.” In page after page of long lines of columns on tissue-thin paper, these lists are organized alphabetically by Pinyin to show a given last character along with all preceding first characters that are joined with the given last character to make other words. Even after a lengthy search, the user often continues to be far from a valid translation.
In Chinese, it is next to impossible to translate a phrase consisting of several characters. Take, as an example, the eight-character phrase guó jì xìn tuō tóu zī gōng sī. Unless the phrase is well known, each individual character must first be translated separately through a tedious dictionary confrontation. Finally, after a lengthy struggle with Chinese/foreign language dictionaries, one would be faced with: guó=country, jì=border; xìn=honest, sincere; tuō=support, stand; tóu=cast, deliver, hurl, jump, throw; zī=consult, inquire; gōng=public; and sī=bureau. This is still far from the proper translation which is International Trust and Investment Corporation.
In another demonstration of the continuing search to improve reading knowledge of Chinese characters, the US Government gives two-week courses to small groups of agents who work in such occupations as drug enforcement, immigration, law, customs and import/export control. Along with transmitting some sense of the immense cultural differences, bare recognition of Chinese characters is the only goal to which the teachers may realistically aspire. Agents are given an introduction to non-alphabetic Chinese writing and to the fact that Pinyin must be learned before further reading progress will be possible. The group is next presented with five separate Chinese/Pinyin/English dictionaries and given lectures on stroke counting. Finally, the agents are instructed in all the tedious steps of locating radicals and seeking the reference points needed to translate just one single character. Ultimately, visual recognition and memorization of a few of the more common characters is considered enough to declare a modicum of success. (For example, prior to completing the course, it was not unusual for an agent to report the two-character Chinese salutation of Mr. (Xīan Shēng) as a suspect's actual first and last name!)
The front page of The Washington Post, Friday, Sep. 22, 2005, ran a feature article, “Across Latin America, Mandarin Is in the Air,” stating, “China is voraciously scouring Latin America for everything from oil to lumber, and there is money to be made. That prospect has . . . business people in much of Latin America flocking to learn the Chinese language, increasingly heard in boardrooms and on executive junkets. ‘It's fundamental to communicate in their language when you go there or they come here,’ said Zamora, 40, a sales executive for the German drug-makers Bayer, which is growing dramatically in China. Zamora already speaks German and English, but struggles to learn written Chinese characters and to mimic tones unknown in Spanish.